It has become common place to note that a tremendous number of people vote against their economic interest by voting Republican. This is generally applied to working class voters who vote Republican. I hope that after today’s Senate vote more of my colleagues in the medical profession will finally realize that they have also been voting against our economic interests by generally voting Republican.

Several years ago a very faulty formula was devised to determine physician reimbursement under Medicare. The formula was written so as to pay physicians less if health care expenses rise. The fault in the formula is that health care expenses have been rising every year for reasons beyond the control of individual physicians, making this formula useless as a tool to motivate physicians to keep health care costs down. Every year for the past several years we have gone through a series of threats of large cuts in reimbursement, and at the last minute Congress has stepped in and overruled the automatic formula.

Last December Congress postponed a 10.6% cut for the first six months of the year under the assumption that they would come up with a longer term fix. The plan supported by many in Congress, at least among the Democrats, was to take the money from excess payments paid to Medicare Advantage plans. The plans are George Bush’s reward to the insurance industry for all the huge contributions they have made to him and other Republicans. Contrary to the usual conservative claim that private business can do anything government can do for less money, Medicare Advantage plans were set up to pay private insurances about 13% more than it costs to care for patients under the government Medicare program.

The House overwhelmingly voted for a plan end this corporate welfare program and instead use the money to avoid the 10.6% cut to physicians, along with some other improvements in Medicare. The measure failed by one vote in the Senate. (Harry Reid later voted no as a procedural matter so it could be brought up again.) The vote was along party lines with the vast majority of Senate Republicans voting against the measure. George Bush, another Republican, also threatened to veto the measure.

Just in case anyone missed this, I will repeat: The Republicans in the Senate, along with Republican President George Bush, are the ones who backed a physician pay cut of 10.6%. I wonder if my colleagues will learn a lesson from this.

Actually we are already seeing signs that they are. The first sign of pressure on a Republican Senator has been seen in Texas. The Texas Medical Association Political Action Committee has withdrawn their endorsement for Republican Senator John Cornyn, who helped defeat the measure.

Of course the Democrats are not motivated purely out of a desire to help physicians. They also realize that elderly patients on Medicare will have quite a hard time finding physicians who will accept them as patients if this is not reversed. The American Medical Association, AARP, and numerous health care organizations supported the failed measure, and some Republican Senators might wind up paying a political price for deciding to stand with George Bush. In a statement protesting the failure of Congress to resolve this matter, James King, President of the American Academy of Family Physicians wrote:

Family physicians have worked tirelessly on behalf of Medicare patients. Despite those efforts, family physicians have struggled with 20 percent inflation in costs for office space, equipment, supplies, health and administrative staff, medical liability insurance and other costs of business since 2001. During that time, their Medicare compensation for their services has stagnated. No small business – as most family physician practices are – can sustain that kind of loss and remain open to care for people.

The impact of this failure goes beyond the medical community; it threatens Medicare beneficiaries’ access to health care because it further drives family physicians toward financial insolvency. Access problems for these patients are emerging. In its 2007 presentation to Congress, MedPAC reported that 30 percent of Medicare beneficiaries were having trouble finding a new primary care physician. In March, the Medical Group Management Association reported that nearly 24 percent of physicians in all specialties had begun limiting or not accepting new Medicare patients; 46 percent would limit or stop accepting new Medicare patients with implementation of the 10.6 percent pay cut scheduled for July 1.

There is hope that the matter will be resolved when Congress returns from their recess. It is only necessary for a singe Republican Senator to be convinced by their constituents to change their mind. Another factor is that Ted Kennedy, who undoubtedly would have voted yes, was not present for health reasons.

He showed me a scene of Ben Cross (Sarek) & Winona Ryder (Amanda Grayson) cradling a baby Spock on the surface of Vulcan. A baby with Spock ears is kind of amazing to look at. But there was no dialogue here, and Vulcan wasn’t really there yet – what was there was a great rock formation that kinda reminded me of that wonky mountain/cliff thing from ARENA / BILL & TED. That said, it wasn’t the ARENA formation – and JJ said that zero effects had been done on this yet – so the lighting wasn’t right, the sky wasn’t right and there were no angry volcano type things or structures in the background, but he assured me… it’ll all look very Vulcan when it is done.

The next scene was a really nicely completed visual effects pass of a pre-Enterprise Federation ship from about 25 years before the Enterprise. I’ve no idea how this fits into the larger story, same with the Spock baby stuff. But this effects shot had a completely different space feel than anything I’ve seen before from STAR TREK or STAR WARS. The shot began on a small part of the ship, then craned back and over to reveal the ship coming into a larger shot of the ship seemingly orbiting a really angry sun. The shot was absolutely dynamic as the star was seemingly raging – and we cut to the interior of the ship – it was very shadowy and very much like that of an old diesel submarine – JJ told me that the look was an evolving look for Star Fleet – so that you could get a sense of the passage of decades here. Once again though – I didn’t see the end of the scene or really get a sense for what was going on.

We might have to wait several months to see it, but the Battlestar Galactica series finale has been lengthened to three hours. The second half of the fourth season will be a total of four hours (not counting at least one made for television movie). In the meantime you could buy your own Cylon to provide entertainment for only $7900. Unfortunately they only sell the toaster variety. They might have better sales if they use a different type of Cylon. After all, two of the three below are Cylons, and I’m not entirely certain about the third:

It seems that a Japanese firm is thinking more along these lines, but they have a long way to go from this robotic girlfriend.

The actresses of Battlestar Galactica are not the only ones to spend the summer posing in bikinis. Ali Larter of Heroes appears in Allure:

Heroes returns on September 22 and Tim Kring told SciFi Wire a bit about the upcoming season:

“You’re going to see a lot of bad guys in this one,” Kring said. “The idea, also, is we’re playing off the idea of our characters as heroes or villains. So it’s really the duality of good and evil. … We’re playing off of this duality of good and evil. All of our characters were given these powers and possess these powers, and at some point it becomes sort of free will and human nature as to what you’re going to do with that. And all of us are given the choice to make decisions that lead us down very dark paths or towards heroic ends. And so, literally, every one of our characters gets faced with that dilemma.”

Kring told SciFi Wire that the third season of the show will delve further into the characters and their backgrounds.

“One of the things that this volume is going to do that, I think, is really going to be fun for the audience is that there were very initial sort of primal questions that the show asked,” Kring said. “Who am I? What’s happening to me? How am I connected? Where are these powers coming from? All of those questions get reframed and turned on their head in a very interesting way in this volume.”

The third season will be divided up into volumes in keeping with other seasons. The first volume will focus on the villains of Heroes, including popular bad-guy Sylar.

“Well, we have no plans of saying goodbye to Sylar right now,” Kring assured fans. “I mean, that was yet another silver lining for the strike, was Zach Quinto’s availability to us in the third volume. I mean, that was a huge thing for us to be able to have him back. As you guys know, he would have disappeared for a large chunk of the second half of season two. And so, for us, it was a big, big deal.”

Heroes will also include a Veronica Mars reunion. Kristen Bell and Francis Capra (Weevil) will be reunited in the same series as Capra plays a villain named Jesse. So as to not leave her out of the summer bikini edition, a picture of Kristen Bell in a bikini from Forgetting Sarah Marshall is here, Kristen Bell as Princess Leia slave girl is here, and another picture of her has been posted here.

Lost has been nominated for an Emmy Award and won four times at the Saturn Awards on June 24. Lost won for best network television series, best actor (Matthew Fox), best supporting actor (Michael Emerson) and best supporting actress (Elizabeth Mitchell). Cloverfield won for best Science Fiction Film and Enchanted won as best Fantasy Film. Amy Adams (above) won the Best Actress Award for her role as Giselle, the newest Disney princess in Enchanted.

Two cast members of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip have been signed for new roles. Amanda Peet will be the female lead in 2012:

2012 revolves around a global cataclysm and the heroic struggle of the survivors. Peet is playing Cusack’s ex-wife, newly married to a wealthy man. Cusack plays a divorced father trying to become a writer while holding a job as a limo driver.

Matthew Perry of Studio 60 and Friends will be returning to television, and get to swear a lot, in The End of Steve. From the description I assume that this will be on premium cable and not network television.

Christopher Eccleston of Doctor Who and Heroes will once again appear in a role with a female companion, but this time he’ll be playing second fiddle. He will play Amelia Earhart’s navigator Fred Noonan in Amelia. He will also play a villian named Destro in G.I. Joe.